Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck (
April 5,
1916 –
June 12,
2003) was an
Oscar-winning
American film actor. He is considered to rank among the most legendary film stars and handsome leading men.
Early life
Born
Eldred Gregory Peck in
La Jolla, California, he was the son of Bernice Ayres (a
Missouri-born convert to
Catholicism) and Gregory Peck (a chemist/pharmacist of
Irish-
Catholic maternal descent and
English paternal ancestry). Gregory's paternal grandmother, Catherine Ashe, was related to the Irish patriot
Thomas Ashe, who took part in the
Easter Rising less than three weeks after Peck's birth and died while on a
hunger strike in
1917. Despite their strict
Catholic religion, Peck's parents divorced when he was five and he was reared by his grandmother.
Peck was sent to a
Roman Catholic military school in
Los Angeles at the age of 10 and then attended
San Diego High School. When he graduated, he enrolled at
San Diego State University to improve his grades so that he could earn admission to his first-choice college, the
University of California, Berkeley. For a short time, he took a job driving a truck for an oil company. In
1936, he enrolled as a pre-med student at UC Berkeley, majoring in English.
Since he was 6'3" and very strong, he also decided to row on the university crew. He developed an interest in acting and was recruited by
Edwin Duerr, director of the school's Little Theater. He went on to appear in five plays during his senior year. Although his tuition fee was only $26 a year, Peck still struggled to pay, and had to work as a "hasher" (kitchen helper) for the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority in exchange for meals. Peck would later say about Berkeley that, "it was a very special experience for me and three of the greatest years of my life. It woke me up and made me a human being." In 1997 he donated $25,000 to the Berkeley crew team in honor of his coach,
Ky Ebright.
After graduating from Berkeley with a BA degree in English, Peck dropped the name "Eldred" and headed to
New York City to study at the
Neighborhood Playhouse. He was often broke and sometimes slept in
Central Park. He worked at the
1939 World's Fair and as a tour guide for
NBC's television broadcasting.
He made his
Broadway debut as the lead in
Emlyn Williams'
The Morning Star in
1942. His second Broadway performance that year was in
The Willow and I with
Edward Pawley. Peck's acting abilities were in high demand during
World War II, since he was exempt from military service owing to a back injury suffered while receiving dance and movement lessons from
Martha Graham as part of his acting training.
Twentieth Century Fox claimed he had injured his back while rowing at university, but in Peck's words, "In Hollywood, they didn't think a dance class was macho enough, I guess. I've been trying to straighten out that story for years."
Film career
Peck's first film was
Days of Glory, released in
1944. Though many critics initially dismissed Peck's acting as wooden, he was nominated for the
Academy Award for
Best Actor five times, four of which came in his first five years of film acting: for
The Keys of the Kingdom (1944),
The Yearling (1946),
Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and
Twelve O'Clock High (1949).
Peck won the award for his fifth nomination, playing the role of Atticus Finch, a Depression-era lawyer and widowed father, in the film adaptation of the
Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Released in
1962 during the height of the
US civil rights movement in the
South, this movie and his role were Peck's favorite. In 2003, Atticus Finch was named the top film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute. His other popular films include
The Guns of Navarone, the war film where he starred with
David Niven and
Anthony Quinn, and
Roman Holiday, in which he appeared as a reporter alongside
Audrey Hepburn in her
Oscar-winning film debut. Peck and Hepburn were close friends until her death, and Peck even introduced her to her first husband,
Mel Ferrer.
In
1947, while many Hollywood figures were being
blacklisted for similar activities, he signed a letter deploring a
House Un-American Activities Committee investigation of alleged communists in the film industry.
In 1949, Peck founded
The La Jolla Playhouse, at his birthplace, along with his friends
Jose Ferrer and
Dorothy McGuire. This local community theater and landmark (now in a new home at the
University of California, San Diego) still thrives today. It has attracted
Hollywood film stars on hiatus both as performers and enthusiastic supporters since its inception.
He was outspoken against the
Vietnam War, while remaining supportive of his son, Stephen, who was fighting there. In 1972, Peck produced the film version of
Daniel Berrigan's play
The Trial of the Catonsville Nine about the prosecution of a group of Vietnam protesters for civil disobedience. Despite his initial reluctance to portray the controversial
General Douglas MacArthur on screen, he did so in
1977 and ended up with a great admiration for the man.
A physically powerful man, he was known to do a majority of his own fight scenes, rarely using body or stunt doubles. In fact, Robert Mitchum, his on screen opponent in "Cape Fear", often said that Peck once accidentally punched him for real during their final fight scene in the movie. He said that he felt the impact of the punch for days afterwards and said "I don't feel sorry for anyone dumb enough who picks a fight with him."
In real life, he was known for being just as kind and generous to people as his on screen characters were.
Later life
In the 1980s he moved to television, where he starred in the mini-series
The Blue and the Gray, playing
Abraham Lincoln. He also starred in the TV film
The Scarlet and The Black, about a real-life Roman Catholic priest in the
Vatican who smuggled Jews and other refugees away from the
Nazis during
World War II.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Gregory Peck has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6100 Hollywood Blvd. In November, 2005, the star was stolen. It has been replaced with a new one. In 1979, he was inducted into the
Western Performers Hall of Fame at the
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Peck retired from active film-making in 1991, having received a
Lifetime Achievement Award from the
American Film Institute in 1989, and
Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema in
1996.
A lifelong supporter of the
Democratic Party, he was suggested in 1970 as a possible Democratic candidate to run against
Ronald Reagan for the office of
Governor of California.
In an interview with the Irish media, Peck revealed that former
President Lyndon Johnson had told him that, had he sought re-election, he intended to offer Peck the post of US ambassador to Ireland — a post Peck, on account of his Irish ancestry, said he might well have taken, saying "it would have been a great adventure".
Gregory Peck encouraged one of his sons, Carey Peck, to run for political office. Carey was defeated both times he tried for Congress, in 1978 and in 1980, by right-wing Republican Congressman
Robert K. Dornan, both times by slim margins.
In 2000, Peck was made a Doctor of Letters by the
National University of Ireland. He was a founding patron of the
University College Dublin School of Film, where he persuaded
Martin Scorsese to become an honorary patron. Peck also became chair of the American Cancer Society for a short time.
Like
Cary Grant before him, Peck spent the last few years of his life touring the world doing speaking engagements in which he would show clips from his movies, reminisce, and answer questions from the audience.
Death
|
Gregory Peck's tomb in Los Angeles |
In early 2003 Gregory Peck was offered the role of
Grandpa Joe in
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he said he'd seriously consider it. He was really looking forward to playing Grandpa Joe to which he considered "the greatest swan song of them all", but he died before he could accept.
In 2003, Peck died in his sleep from cardiorespiratory arrest, and bronchial pneumonia, at the age of 87 in
Los Angeles. He was survived by his second wife,
Veronique Passani, their son and daughter, and two of his three sons from his first marriage, the oldest of whom, Jonathan, committed suicide by a single gunshot to the head in
1975.
Peck is buried in the
mausoleum of the
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in
Los Angeles, California.
Days of Glory (1944)
The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
The Valley of Decision (1945)
Spellbound (1945)
The Yearling (1946)
Duel in the Sun (1946)
The Macomber Affair (1947)
Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Yellow Sky (1949)
The Great Sinner (1949)
Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
The Gunfighter (1950)
Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951)
Only the Valiant (1951)
Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Awards (1951) (short subject)
David and Bathsheba (1951)
Pictura: An Adventure in Art (1951) (documentary) (narrator)
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)
The World in His Arms (1952)
The Million Pound Note (1953)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Boom on Paris (1954)
Night People (1954)
The Purple Plain (1954)
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956)
Moby Dick (1956)
Designing Woman (1957)
The Bravados (1958)
The Big Country (1958) (also producer)
Pork Chop Hill (1959)
Beloved Infidel (1959)
On the Beach (1959)
The Guns of Navarone (1961)
Cape Fear (1962)
Lykke og krone (1962) (documentary)
How the West Was Won (1962)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Captain Newman, M.D. (1963)
Behold a Pale Horse (1964)
Mirage (1965)
John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums (1966) (documentary) (narrator)
Arabesque (1966)
Pahkahullu Suomi (1967) (Cameo)
The Stalking Moon (1969)
Mackenna's Gold (1969)
The Chairman (1969)
Marooned (1969)
I Walk the Line (1970)
Shoot Out (1971)
Billy Two Hats (1974)
The Omen (1976)
MacArthur (1977)
The Boys from Brazil (1978)
The Sea Wolves: The Last Charge of the Calcutta Light Horse (1980)
The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Sanford Meisner: The American Theatre's Best Kept Secret (1985) (documentary)
Directed by William Wyler (1986) (documentary)
Amazing Grace and Chuck (1987)
Old Gringo (1989)
Other People's Money (1991)
Cape Fear (1991)
L'Hidato Shel Adolf Eichmann (1994) (documentary) (narrator)
Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1996) (documentary)
The Art of Norton Simon (1999) (short subject) (narrator)
*Michael Freedland: Gregory Peck. A Biography. New York 1980
*Gary Fishgall: Gregory Peck. A Biography. New York 2002
*
Lynn Haney: Gregory Peck. A Charmed Life. New York 2004
*[
1] Gregory Peck Online
* [
2] Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Gregory Peck
